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> This shows the fundamental flaw in cryptocurrencies. Hardly... but if it did, it doesn't mean they're still not worth using and developing. And traditional
by spraak 9y ago
> This shows the fundamental flaw in cryptocurrencies.
Hardly... but if it did, it doesn't mean they're still not worth using and developing.
And traditional banks don't require a physical robbery to be hacked.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- saalweachter 9y agoTraditional banks have insurance. An uninsured Bitcoin exchange, once the first few coins have been stolen, becomes a secret game of musical chairs to see who gets left without the coins they deposited.
- mrb 9y agoWell, some cryptocurrency exchanges have insurance too. For example Coinbase/GDAX is insured by Lloyd's of London, and their USD accounts even have FDIC insurance: https://support.gdax.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2689803-how-deposits-are-insured-on-gdax https://support.gdax.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2689803...
- quickthrower2 9y agoAnd that insurance is the state.
- rspeer 9y agoAre you expecting gasps of horror in response to your simplistic statement? Oh, no, not the state! Not everybody here is an anarcho-capitalist.
- quickthrower2 9y agoNo not expecting gasps of horror at all! Just saying the bank can be bailed out and consumers expecting this can feel a bit safer with their deposits
- rspeer 9y agoOh, I apologize for misinterpreting you. So many of these threads end up with people who think they can replace government with Bitcoin, and I read it in that tone. Incidentally, I believe that there is also a considerable amount of private insurance involved in banking.
- quickthrower2 9y agoThanks to be fair my comment was short and mysterious and in the context of the HN community it's probably been taken the less charitable way. In the UK there is deposit insurance provided by the government as the last stop and that's an amount per financial institution.
- StillBored 9y agoWell, they can also reverse transactions, and physically extracting more than a few thousand from an account can be a painful process at most banks, particularly if the money was recently transferred. They just tell you, "sorry we don't have that much cash on hand, it will take us X days to get it, please return on Y."
- nickonline 9y agoIn a world with fast payments, that money can be washed and moved and out a dozen atms quite quickly
- lukeschlather 9y agoThat's why payments typically take a few days to clear. Bitcoin is designed for instantaneous payments with no rollback, which is an anti-feature.
- gizmo686 9y agoBitcoin explicitly does not have instantaneous payments. The standard view is to wait for 6 blocks before considering a transaction as "confirmed" Confirming a transaction at 0 blocks leaves you open to a very low cost double spend attack.
- mrb 9y agoA central bank hack lead to $58 million being transferred and withdrawn in cash in just a few days. Permanently lost/irrecoverable... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Bank_robbery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_Bank_robbery
- pavel_lishin 9y agoHow do you physically extract more than a few thousand from a cryptocurrency exchange?
- wbl 9y agoHas a US customer ever lost money from a bank getting hacked?